The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir
I am at the New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance. That's right -- it's a Halloween dance not just for all the single Mormons between the ages of eighteen and thirty who live in Manhattan, it's for all the single Mormons in the tristate area. That's a lot of virgins in one room. And I'm one of them.
Tonight I'm dressed like a Queen Bee. The best part of my costume is my stinger. I bought a black funnel from the hardware store and stuck it on my butt. When I walk, it wiggles back and forth. Genius. I was certain that some Mormon guy was going to see me and fall head over heels in love. I joked to my friends that the Queen Bee was going to find a drone. Instead, I'm by myself at the punch bowl stocking up on generic-brand Oreo cookies. When I'm wrong, I'm wrong and strong.
The worst part is, I should've known better. This is my fourth New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance in a row. Every year, I come hoping to meet "The One." And every year, I leave by myself, vowing never to come again. But by the time 365 days have passed, I've completely forgotten this commitment. In the end, I am here for one reason and one reason only: I want very much to fall in love, and it would be nice if I could fall for another Mormon.
Cue: this place. And by this place I mean a lame dance held in a church gym. Although, to her credit, the church activities' committee director has made a halfhearted attempt to disguise the gym. Black and orange streamers are taped to the basketball hoop and silly monster feet cover the lines on the linoleum floor. Since we're all over the age of five, no one is fooled; clearly this is still the gym.
Let's not forget tonight's DJ, Brother Mo, who's wearing a polyester suit and tie with no trace of irony. He occupies the stage at the far end of the gym. To his left there's a long plastic table for refreshments: lemonade and cookies, as if we're a little league soccer team.
Then there are the dance rules. The most important one, announced over the pulpit on Sunday, is that there is to be no cross-dressing or wearing of masks. I understand the logic behind no cross-dressing, though I doubt that if a man were to dress like a woman at this function he would suddenly realize his true identity. But masks? I personally have never put on a mask and suddenly felt the urge to hold up a convenience store or reenact the orgy scene from Eyes Wide Shut. But that's just me.
The other rules are unspoken. There is to be no inappropriate dancing or lascivious behavior at the church dance. No grinding. No Levi-loving. And the only "humpty" allowed is a costume of an egg. That's why there are too many lights overhead and only "safe" songs like "Cotton-eyed Joe" on the sound system. When slow songs do play, people joke that you should be able to fit "the standard works" between you and your partner. The standard works is a Mormon term referring to all of the religious books we study. So when you're slow dancing, the Old Testament, New Testament, The Book of Mor-mon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price should be able to fit in the space between you and your dance partner -- or you're dancing too close.
If it weren't already painfully obvious, these events are organized to facilitate marriage. How else would we Manhattan Mormons meet, marry, then make more Mormons? (Take that, Sally and your seashells on the seashore.) No one acknowledges this, though; that's another unspoken rule of the Mormon dance. We're all just here to "have fun." The effect is pretty horrifying. It's like watching a bunch of assembly-line workers at a factory pretending they're there because they love screwing nuts on bolts. I want to shout, "Can't we just acknowledge that we are here to eventually screw a nut on a bolt?" But no one would get the joke, and the ones who do would be terribly offended.
Contrary to popular belief, there are Mormons who live in New York City. I don't know how many of us there are all together, but there are probably eight hundred single Mormons and at least twenty thousand former Mormons. I've been in the city for four years now. I moved to New York to go to NYU for acting, I graduated in May, and I started work as a toy demonstrator at FAO Schwarz.
While I am Mormon, I'm not from Utah. I was born in Seattle, but I grew up in Madrid and London because my father's job moved my family overseas. My dad works for Boeing; it's not that exciting. But it meant we moved around a lot. When I was nine we moved to Madrid. When I was thirteen we moved to London; when I was fifteen we moved to Seattle; and when I was seventeen we moved back to London.
When I finished high school at the American School in London, my parents wanted me to go to BYU, Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah. It's where they went to school, and it's where my older sister went. They were worried that if I didn't go to BYU I'd stop being Mormon, and I wouldn't meet anyone to marry -- well, they were right about the second part.
I remember when I got my acceptance letter from BYU via the British Royal Mail. I opened the thick envelope, looked at the emblem of the busy honeybees all working together, and then read the word Congratulations. It felt good. Any letter of acceptance makes you feel good. But when I got my letter of acceptance to NYU, something was different. I opened the package on my way up to my room, read the word Congratulations, and started to sob, right there on the stairs. I sat down and I cried. I didn't realize how much getting into NYU meant to me until I had those huge tears pouring down my cheeks. And that's when I knew I had to go to New York City.
My mother was terrified. She's the more conservative of my parents, and when she's not busy being a mom, she spends her time forwarding cheesy e-mails about Christian miracles, or signing petitions against Abercrombie & Fitch's pornographic ads. To her, New York was the city from the movies made in the seventies, where you heard gunshots out your window and pimps screaming at hos. Not that there were many scenes like that in the PG-rated movies my mother was inclined to watch. But still, New York was a scary, dangerous place. A month before I went off to college, she sat me down for a mother-daughter talk.
"Elna," she said nervously. "The first thing that will happen when you move to New York is, you might start to swear."
I wanted to say, "Oh shit, really?" But I knew that only my dad would think that was funny. Instead I nodded my head and said, "Mmm hmm."
"And Elna," she continued, "swearing will lead to drinking."
I had somehow missed the connection.
"And drinking will lead to doing drugs."
The conversation was starting to get more amusing than even I had anticipated. "And Elna," she said, pursing her lips and looking directly into my eyes, "what would you do if a lesbian tried to make out with you?"
I didn't think double takes existed outside of Threes Company until that moment. I was used to her saying words like church calling, relief society, and bishopric meeting. Not the word lesbian, let alone lesbian and make out in the same sentence. It was awesome. But I was also slightly offended. If you followed my mother's logic, each step was a progression toward becoming more of a sinner. First I'd swear, then I'd drink, then I'd do drugs. By that point I was getting used to the narrative, so I assumed sex with men would be next. But no -- my mother skipped that altogether and jumped to my becoming a lesbian. Did my mother honestly think that I had a better chance of getting action from a woman than a man?
These are all questions I didn't ask her directly. But at this point I'd almost forgotten she'd asked me anything: What would I do if a lesbian tried to make out with me?
She was sitting there, arms folded, waiting for an answer.
"I'd say, 'No, thank you ... lesbian.'"
My mother rolled her eyes. "There's one more thing," she said, resuming our heart-to-heart.
Sex with men, sex with men, sex with men.
"There are these clubs in New York where men pay larger women to dance with very little clothing on; don't do that."
Our mother-daughter talk ended with that golden nugget of wisdom. I left thinking, Great, my mom thinks I'm moving to the big city to become a lesbian stripper. Apparently, when she told me I was "special," this is what she meant.
My father sat me down a few days later for another leaving-the-nest talk. His advice was a little different.
"Elna," he began, "never forget these three things." He paused for dramatic effect. "Number One: Never wear a dead man's socks. Number Two: Never let em see you sweat. And Number Three: Never touch a fat man's stomach."
I waited for him to clarify, to add a line that would somehow make all the other words he'd said make sense. But he just patted me on the shoulder and left me in the living room to contemplate his wisdom.
That was all the advice I was given before moving to New York City.
I wanted more, or at the very least a tender good-bye. Only this was interrupted when the check-in clerk announced that my bag was too heavy. My father opened it in the middle of the terminal. I watched as he pulled out items of sentimental value, told me I didn't need them, and threw them away.
That's when my mother saw it, among my tightly folded clothes: a rainbow scarf. I wasn't keeping it from her. I'd owned it for several years, and had purchased it because it reminded me of Punky Brewster in a retro eighties sort of way. She snatched it out of my suitcase.
"You can't wear this in New York!" she exclaimed.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Everyone will think that you're gay."
My mother thought gay people had a monopoly on rainbows. In my opinion rainbows were for everyone, just like unicorns.
"Mom, I'm not gay," I responded.
"I know, but you should avoid the appearance."
"That's why I bleach my mustache."
I tried to get my scarf back. I told her how much I liked it. I explained how cold I would be without it. I even tried to usher her into this century by explaining that wearing rainbows didn't automatically mean a person was gay. The Lucky Charms leprechaun was not necessarily a homosexual. The Care Bear with the rainbow on his tummy did not have a life partner. He didn't even have genitals.
Eventually my mom gave me money to buy a new scarf. But she was not, under any circumstances, going to let me take the rainbow scarf to New York City.
Both of my parents walked me to the security gate. I hugged them good-bye, swung my backpack over my shoulder, and joined the line. Just as I was about to go through the metal detector, I turned around. Good-bye, I waved.
I am forever grateful for my mentor Elizabeth Swados, who taught me to "Just tell the story." Liz, without the countless hours you spent nurturing my voice, I could not have done any of this.